Angels Deserve To Die
by Nerweniel
Summary: Minerva McGonagall reflects on her life and the façade she once created for herself. Written for the "Voices and Vaginas" challenge, angst.
1. One

**Angels Deserve To Die**

I have been called many names during my long life.

Hurtful names- shameful names- affectionate names- and I remember them all. Not one of them is not being displayed there, in the gallery of my memory- not one is lacking in the innumerable shelves of my heart.

My life has been a full one.

I have been called a teacher many times- I have been called a mother, an angel. I have been called a lover- I have been called a spinster. I am all of those. I am a mother to many people, I am a teacher to more- I have been a lover to many people… but a spinster to more.

I have been called an angel by many people- but a whore by more.

I smile at the irony. I do not smile often, but I do smile at this irony- the irony of my life. I know what I am regarded as, I know what is my most valuable name of all, nowadays. Teacher. Deputy Headmistress.

Respectable.

They don't know what they are talking about. If I was not being suffocated, always- always!- by that façade of respectability that I created for myself, I would spit on them. They have elevated me, they have given me what I wanted the most- and they've ripped me apart in the process.

Don't they remember, then?

Don't they remember the girl I once was? The girl, nicknamed Beauty, with her thick, black hair, with her porcelain blue eyes- the girl with the translucent skin and the smile which could melt icebergs- or so the tale said?

I don't know.

But I do remember. Everything- everything of what I was and of what I could have been- everything, up to the very day I accepted the task which ended my beauty, my life- which ended that girl I once knew with a brusque, black dot- a full stop after that sentence.

I smile.

I was the only female Auror in those days. Twenty-two years old, beautiful, intelligent- and brave. My courage has always been both my curse and my blessing- both my luck and my doom. They sent me to Grindelwald- I consented.

I was not ignorant, just the way I still am not. I knew what they sent me to- I knew what they expected me to do, they knew what I would have to do. I was pretty- they simply must have known. Just the way I did.

When I returned, they deemed me a whore.

They turned their backs on me. I had defeated him, not Albus- who, undeniably the good man that he is, offered me a job in order to soothe his own conscience- but I, I was the heroine. I still am- it has been my virginity which saved them all.

I was not too proud to accept the job offered to me. I was poor- broken, desperate- courage finally having failed me. I was twenty-six when it all ended- I had nothing.

So I created my mask. I created my façade. I pulled my once thick, shiny hair back into a colourless bun- my skin turned pale and wrinkled- my eyes lost their spark.

It was my beauty which saved them all.

It was my life which was sacrificed.

I have learnt to live with it. I have learnt to live with my task, with my life, with the names.

I am a mother- I am a lover- I am a teacher, an angel- but most of all, primarily, I raise my chin, I nod, I say yes. Yes, I am a whore. Most of all, I am the whore you, World, made me. Despite everything.

And yet sometimes I wonder- if angels deserve to die-

Do whores too?


	2. Two

I don't know what will happen now. I have lived for a very long time, I have suffered for a very long time- yet I have not cried in a very long time. There are moments when even tears forsake you- and they have forsaken me.

I am not sad. I do not weep for what has been taken from me, for what I lost on that night and all those nights afterwards. I do not weep because of him, because of how he tore my heart apart and stepped on it- I do not weep.

But I yell. I yell because of those whom I returned to- because of those among whom I expected to find compassion, love, respect- and returned bare-handed. Nothing was granted me, there was nothing low, despicable, enough for me- for the whore.

_Whore._

I don't even dislike the sound of the word anymore. It's grown familiar- it's grown on me, like a name, not an insult, but an objective and honest description of what I am- of how I feel. Nobody ever cared about what I felt- and it was good that way. I know no self-pity- only righteous despair, the despair of a girl who never properly matured, yet is locked up in a body older than she is.

I watch the blood slowly dripping down my wrist- on the floor, staining the dark, dark wood which my bare feet are touching lightly. I watch- intently, calmly, even.

No drama. Never drama.

I never was that kind of girl- no matter which other kinds of girl I ever might have been. I never was one for drama- for tears. I have learnt very early that they are no use anyway. Once- just once, my tears did fall

They were mocked and spit upon.

Now I sit here. My eyes are half closed, revelling in the sight of my thick, dark red blood. Dark red- the colour of Gryffindor, isn't it? Isn't it?

How appropriate.

I do not think about where I am heading for. I only try to recall what I am leaving- and I conclude that it is just this- nothing.

I have wondered many times whether anyone on this world has ever loved me.

Or if anyone in the next ever will.

And I find myself not even caring anymore.

Does darkness finally descend, I wonder as, gently, slowly, I lay myself down. I shall not be mourned over- who shall dig my grave if I shall not? I don't know- I don't care.

I will be forgotten.


End file.
